12 Best TV Shows Like The Hunting Wives

"The Hunting Wives" is a sexy thriller that is equal parts erotic fun and twisted murder mystery, and it's become a huge hit for Netflix. The women of the title took over Netflix's TV charts and have many people clamoring for a second season of soapy drama. 

Adapted from May Cobb's novel by creator Rebecca Cutter, the story centers on Sophie (Brittany Snow), a Boston transplant who moves with her husband and young son to a small town in Texas. There, Sophie meets glamorous socialite Margo (Malin Akerman) and her group of housewive friends, who love their husbands but love doing whatever gives them pleasure more. As Sophie is drawn deeper into this group, she gets caught up in their shocking secrets, steamy entanglements, and devastating crimes, while adding some of her own.

If you've already binged all eight episodes of "The Hunting Wives" and are looking for other shows with a similar flavor, we've got you covered. Some of these shows are female-centered crime dramas, others are about the rich behaving badly, and still others lean into Southern glitz and glamour — but all are reminiscent of "The Hunting Wives." Whichever ones you decide to watch, you can't go wrong with our list of the 12 best TV shows like "The Hunting Wives."

"Big Little Lies," which has run for two seasons on HBO and could still get a Season 3, starts with a murder, but it takes all eight intriguing episodes of the first season to find out who did it, who died, and why. In between there's plenty of intrigue to go around. The plot revolves around a group of women in the enclave of Monterey, California, and their husbands and children. 

There's Madeline Mackenzie (Reese Witherspoon), who has a teenage daughter (Kathryn Newton) with her ex, Nathan Carlson (James Tupper), and a younger daughter (Darby Camp) with her current husband, Ed (Adam Scott); Celeste Wright (Nicole Kidman) who has twin boys (Cameron and Nicholas Crovetti) with her husband, the much younger Perry (Alexander Skarsgard); and Jane Chapman (Shailene Woodley), who has a young son, Ziggy (Iain Armitage). Jane meets Celeste and Madeline on the first day of school, along with Renata Klein (Laura Dern) and Nathan's current wife, Bonnie (Zoe Kravitz), and from there all sorts of drama occurs, eventually leading to the murder that initially brought us into the story.

"Big Little Lies," based on the novel by Liane Moriarty, features fantastic performances by everyone involved and spins its narrative in a non-linear storytelling style. Like "The Hunting Wives," "Big Little Lies" centers on a group of primarily wealthy women who do very bad things — although one could argue that, in this case, they do them for (mostly) the right reasons, as opposed to the women on "The Hunting Wives."

This classic series is the ur-text for shows in "The Hunting Wives" genre, shows that combine juicy murder mysteries and sexy time fronted by a primarily female cast. In this case the story starts when a group of women from Wisteria Lane — Susan (Teri Hatcher), Lynette (Felicity Hoffman), Bree (Marcia Cross), and Gabrielle (Eva Longeria) — discover that their friend Mary Alice (Brenda Strong) has committed suicide under questionable circumstances. From there, the four housewives engage in all manner of wild shenanigans over eight seasons.

"Desperate Housewives" aired on ABC, so it was far tamer than "The Hunting Wives," but it got in plenty of innuendo. In fact, it was decidedly adult, and creator Marc Cherry had a darkly comic take on suburban life, with the housewives frequently getting in over their heads. The package worked, and "Desperate Housewives" was a hit. While it got more absurd as time went on, those first few seasons were a delight, full of fantastic females who deal with both domestic difficulties and puzzles of a more serious nature on their picture-perfect street.

If you want even more of the Southern charm of "The Hunting Wives," check out "Dallas," the soap opera that ran from 1978 to 1991 and then was revived from 2012 to 2014. This drama centers on the wealthy Ewing clan who made their money in oil and cattle ranching. It revolves around the rivalry between the eldest Ewing, J.R. (Larry Hagman), who is driven by a love of money and power, and the youngest son, Bobby (Patrick Duffy), who has morals and integrity. J.R. becomes an oil baron running Ewing Oil, while Bobby becomes the owner of Southfork Ranch and won't allow oil drilling there. The rivalry between the pair is continued through their sons John Ross (Josh Henderson) and Christopher (Jesse Metcalfe) in the revival.

Though the series focuses on the men in the show, the women are relevant too. In particular, Bobby's marriage to Pam (Victoria Principal) was a big focus of the original series, and in the revival both Elena Ramos (Jordana Brewster), John Ross and Christopher's childhood friend and current crush, and Rebecca Sutter (Julie Gonzalo) — who is eventually revealed to be Ewing rival Cliff Barnes' daughter — have great story arcs.

Prime Video's "We Were Liars" is what "The Hunting Wives" might be if the women were much younger, because this story centers on Cadence Sinclair (Emily Alyn Lind), a teenager who wakes up on the beach two months after something terrible has happened and is unable to remember what it is.

Cadence, her cousins Mirren (Esther McGregor) and Johnny (Joseph Zada), and their friend Gat (Shubham Maheshwari), the nephew of Cadence's aunt Carrie (Mamie Gummer), spend summers on their family's Beechwood Island, which is owned by Cadence's grandparents. The series takes place during the summers when Cadence is 16 and 17 years old, volleying back and forth between them as Cadence puts together what happened to her when she lost her memory.

The Sinclair family is dripping in wealth, making them very much like some of the members of "The Hunting Wives." Also like "The Hunting Wives," "We Were Liars" features a juicy mystery. But unlike "The Hunting Wives," this mystery is incredibly personal — and personally disturbing — to Cadence and therefore difficult for her to pin down. We follow her as she goes about putting the pieces together until the show's disturbing conclusion.

"Grosse Pointe Garden Society" revolves around four garden club members who bury a body in the club's plot of land. As the story moves back and forth between the present day and six months in the future, the audience gets to put together what happened, and most importantly, to whom. Could it be the person who killed Alice's (AnnaSophia Robb) dog Molly? The jerk who Catherine (Aja Naomi King) cheated with? The husband of Brett's (Ben Rappoport) ex-wife and stepfather to his kids? Or one of the many people who got angry with Birdie (Melissa Fumero) for her flippant ways?

"Grosse Pointe Garden Society," which takes place in the titular Michigan town, has similar trappings to "The Hunting Wives." They both include groups of people who behave badly and get in trouble, although the police have a different relationship with this quartet than the cops in "The Hunting Wives"' do with those ladies.

"Grosse Pointe Garden Society" was canceled after one season, which means that if you watch it, you must be prepared for disappointment, as some of the mysteries they set up for an absent Season 2 won't be resolved. But the mystery of who they buried in the garden has been, as has the mystery of who killed Alice's dog. 

The women in "Bad Sisters" on Apple TV+ aren't wealthy. In fact, John Paul (Claes Bang), the man whose murder drives the plot, may be one of the wealthiest among them — and he isn't especially well-off. But like "The Hunting Wives," the show centers on a set of female protagonists engaged in a murder mystery, and in this case the women know exactly what happened; it's the audience that has to catch up. The series opens after John Paul has died but frequently flashes back to when he was alive to show exactly what occurred.

The Garvey sisters — Eva (Sharon Horgan), Grace (Anne-Marie Duff), Ursula (Eva Birthistle), Bibi (Sarah Greene), and Becka (Eve Hewson) — are a close-knit clan, but they hate the way Grace's husband controls her and her daughter Blanaid (Saise Quinn), and how he does terrible things to each of them, including causing the accident that took Bibi's eye and reneging on a promise to Becka that he'd financially back her business. They decide to kill him both for Grace and Blanaid, and for themselves. What follows is a series of near misses as they repeatedly try and fail to get him to shuffle off this mortal coil. 

Of course, he eventually winds up dead. But how did he get that way if the sisters didn't cause it? The truth is even stranger than you may have thought and is why we called "Bad Sisters" a fiery family feud drama. If the first season wasn't puzzling enough, the second season is even more of a mystery, and it all has the wayward Garvey sisters at its center.

"Apples Never Fall," a Peacock limited series based on a Liane Moriarty book, is a kinder, gentler version of "The Hunting Wives" and other shows about murder in wealthy neighborhoods (check out our review of the series). That's because, at its core, it's a cozy family mystery. 

The story centers on the Delaney family. Joy (Annette Bening) and Stan (Sam Neill) Delaney are tennis coaches who have sold their tennis school in order to retire. But then Joy goes missing, leading to a police investigation and the remembrances of the Delaneys' four adult children, Amy (Alison Brie), Troy (Jake Lacy), Logan (Conor Merrigan Turner), and Brooke (Essie Randles), as they reevaluate their image of their parents as the perfect couple. Into the mix comes Savannah (Georgia Flood), a woman who showed up at the Delaneys' doorstep one evening who is more than what she seems.

The show may be a more comfortable watch than most in this genre, but it still involves plenty of secrets, as Stan is pegged as a suspect in Joy's disappearance when a recording of a seemingly heated argument between the pair is found. As a result, "Apples Never Fall" is well worth a watch both for the fantastic cast and the big revelations of what has led them to this point.

Netflix series "The Waterfront" is about a wealthy family that gets in over its head and, much like Margo in "The Hunting Wives," must do some unscrupulous things to keep their money, up to and including murder. But on "The Waterfront," which fans of Netflix's "Ozark" will also like, it's not just the women getting involved in terrible acts but the men too. 

The Buckley family — parents Harlan (Holt McCallany) and Belle (Maria Bello) and their adult children Cane (Jake Weary) and Bree (Melissa Benoist) — are North Carolina royalty who own a restaurant and a sprawling fishing business, but after Harlan stopped running the business in the wake of health problems, Belle and Cane got them into financial trouble. To get them out, Harlan has to do a number of unsavory things, which reverberate out to the rest of the family, including their daughter-in-law Peyton (Danielle Campbell) and Harlan's long-lost son, Shawn (Rafael L. Silva).

The members of the Buckley clan are each messed up in their own special ways, including Cane having an affair and Bree being a recovering addict, so there's plenty of drama to go around on "The Waterfront." The show, which was created by Kevin Williamson, is the perfect blend of violence and family soap and features fantastic performances, especially by Topher Grace as a sociopathic drug dealer.

If you liked "The Hunting Wives" but wanted it to be even more Southern than even "Dallas," try Netflix's "Ransom Canyon." This show takes place in Texas, like "The Hunting Wives," but unlike "The Hunting Wives," it has full-blown ranches — plural — where its characters live and work. There's also a rodeo, a trapped cow, and other oddities that are specific to the rustic Western milieu. However, there's still plenty of scheming and lies to go around when this show gets going.

The series follows Staten Kirkland (Josh Duhamel), who is having trouble getting over the death of his son, 16-year-old Randall (Hubert Smielecki), in a car accident a year earlier. Meanwhile, his friend Quinn (Minka Kelly), the owner of the local dancehall and best friend of his deceased wife, has feelings for him, but Staten tells her they can't be together. 

Plus, Staten's brother-in-law Davis (Eoin Macken), the sibling of his late wife and the only one who lives in a house much like those of "The Hunting Wives," wants to build a pipeline on Staten's land even though Staten refuses to sell. But Davis has an ace up his sleeve: Yancy Grey (Jack Shumacher), who works on Cap Fuller's (James Brolin) ranch and happens to be his secret grandson. There's a lot going on in "Ransom Canyon" and thankfully there's a second season coming to keep the intrigue going.

This five-episode limited series from Netflix, based on creator Molly Smith Metzler's play "Elemeno Pea," is about a young woman, Devon (Meghann Fahy), whose younger sister, Simone (Milly Alcock), is the assistant to Michaela Kell (Julianne Moore), a wealthy former lawyer who now lives off her husband Peter's (Kevin Bacon) money. Over one weekend, Devon shows up at Peter and Michaela's island mansion and is disturbed by the opulence and luxury that surrounds Simone, accusing Michaela of running a cult. But Simone doesn't want to be saved by Devon. In fact, she's happy right where she is and instead rejects Devon's plea to come home to help her with their father, Bruce (Bill Camp), who has dementia.

Like "The Hunting Wives," "Sirens" examines the dynamics between the haves and have-nots, although "Sirens" does so far more pointedly (read our review here). While Sophie in "The Hunting Wives" is enchanted with the ladies because of their freedom, Simone is enchanted with Michaela because of everything her amazing wealth represents — so much so that she's willing to be trapped by it. As a result, Devon and her father never stand a chance once Simone gets a taste of the Kells' lavish lifestyle.

"Palm Royale" has even more opulence than "The Hunting Wives," and raises the same eyebrows as it delves into the sex and secrets that drive people, especially in an ultra-wealthy tax bracket. But in "Palm Royale" the people aren't just rich, they're extremely rich, and carefully police the boundaries of their rarefied lifestyle. So when Maxine Dellacorte (Kristen Wiig) tries to join their ranks, they don't make it easy.

In 1969, Maxine is determined to use the last name of her husband Douglas's (Josh Lucas) family as her entry into the elite country club the Palm Royale. But she encounters obstacles, which include Dinah (Leslie Bibb) and Evelyn (Allison Janney), women who don't want Maxine in their inner circle. Like all the women at the Palm Royale, Maxine doesn't work, although perhaps she should. Instead, she lives off whatever money she can scrounge up from Douglas' wealthy aunt Norma (Carol Burnett), who is currently in a coma because of an embolism. The cast is top-notch and the glittering costumes and production design are incredible, so it's no wonder "Palm Royale" is getting a second season.

Netflix's "The Perfect Couple" is a mystery directed by Susanne Bier about a wedding weekend that's interrupted by a murder. An adaptation of Elin Hilderbrand's novel of the same name, it stars Nicole Kidman of "Big Little Lies," Eve Hewson of "Bad Sisters," and Meghann Fahy of "Sirens." They all give nuanced performances as, respectively, Greer Garrison Winbury, novelist and matriarch of a wealthy family; Amelia Sacks, the bride of Greer's son, Benji (Billy Howle); and Merritt Monaco, Amelia's maid of honor and the murder victim. 

Although Greer isn't thrilled about the wedding of her middle son to Amelia, she and her husband, Tag (Liev Schreiber), are holding it at their mansion on Nantucket. But then Amelia finds Merritt's body, and the wedding plans are off. As the police sift through the Winbury family's dirty laundry, revelations come out about everything from Greer and Tag's marriage to (eventually) who killed Merritt. 

"The Perfect Couple," which ran for six episodes, mirrors the fabulous wealth of the women on "The Hunting Wives" and their different responses to the murder that takes up much of their time. But perhaps the biggest comparison is in the way both Greer from "The Perfect Couple" and Margo from "The Hunting Wives" use their marriages to try to forget about their pasts, which inevitably rear their ugly heads anyway.